Recoil
by Annie Blythe
Summary: Realization comes in many forms, none of them particularly forgiving. Post-3x11. Sam POV.


_DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rookie Blue._

* * *

When it happens, it's not a eureka moment: light bulbs and exclamation points and the clouds parting in some mystical, sublime fashion.

It's not a burning bush or a post-it dropped from the sky; even less the pointed remarks from Diaz or the tinny echo of Callaghan's voice in his head.

(Moral high ground is a slippery slope these days.)

It doesn't even take a goddamn_ incident_, bomb threats or hostages at gunpoint or a disconnected mic on a covert UC sting. He isn't standing on the sidelines, temper snaring bystanders like the speed trap on Dundas and Oliver blowing his referee whistle, waving the crowds through.

It's not the bottom of a tumbler of Scotch or the blinding, fluorescent haze of a hospital room.

It's a Tuesday. It's a momentary wave of loneliness, and the knowledge that it will never be the same.

* * *

It's regret that finally outweighs everything else: Regret for how he handled it, for throwaway lines like "we can be friends." He's been wearing Jerry's death like battle armor, cold and distant on the outside.

(Inside, grief chokes him more effectively than the collar of his dress blues.)

He sweeps a hand across his throat wearily. It's a habit that won't quit, everything tight and uncomfortable since the funeral.

(He wonders, sometimes, if their relationship wasn't its own leash.)

God knows he loves her, even if the words didn't come, but it hasn't been easy to circumvent thirty-odd years of walls and tight-lipped emotion. He doesn't know how to be this hand-holding, early-morning-doting, vacation-ready guy; doesn't know how to wave his white flag and open the channels of communication. Certainly not while everything is twisted and dark inside him, a gnawing knot of guilt and misery.

It's easier to ask for the keys and wish her well on the journey: _See you around, partner; it's been real; keep in touch..._ One hundred other meaningless slogans in 15 Division's yearbook.

Time and space, and he's a bonafide savant.

(Time and space, and he doesn't have a goddamn clue.)

* * *

She never pressured him to fit any sort of boyfriend mold. That might be the worst part.

His attitude was easier to maintain when he thought he could anticipate her response. Phone calls and sympathetic looks and incessant requests to "talk." Turns out, she didn't respond like that... She was gentle but firm, holding him accountable but giving him room to breathe, to grieve.

(She understands, and there's a part of him that hates it. This comprehensive assessment, brown eyes that read him thoroughly; it's a hundred different breeds of unnerving. She's gotten close enough for everything to be lost with a split-second error, a misfire in the field. It's easier to push her away, match her well-intentioned concern with anger. Diffuse the bomb before its eventual implosion.)

It's selfish.

(It's self-preservation.)

He's content to stew. Rough up a few suspects; slam a few bodies against the wall.

He presses his elbow into the spine of a perp, and there's something immediate and gratifying it: A fleeting moment of power, when he feels _something_. It's better than the alternative, the numbness that floods his veins.

Everyone has a coping mechanism. He finds his temper flares at the slightest provocation, but in the end, it further serves his quest for solitude. They go remarkably hand in hand, his agitation and guilt, that persistent need to be alone. Distance, actively removing himself from the situation... It's worked in the past. He hasn't forgotten the appeal of extended UCs.

(As it stands, his face does a pretty good job of securing that lone stool at the Penny.)

If he acknowledges the last few weeks with more than a cursory thought, what does he have?

A failed relationship and a dead best friend.

Realization doesn't change anything.

* * *

It's a Tuesday.

He wakes, and things are the same. Gray paint that needs a touch-up on his far bedroom wall, preset coffeemaker that spreads a wakeful aroma through the first floor. Newspaper on the stoop and last night's dishes in the sink; dark, tired eyes that return his gaze in the mirror.

Same as every other day.

(_Not the same, never the same, and god almighty, if anyone's to blame..._)

Hollow and aching, that Andy-sized void.

He's the rook with his radio switched off.

(Realization doesn't change a damn thing.)


End file.
